


words i wanted to tell you

by kyoonglights



Series: 사월, 그리고 꽃 (april, and a flower) [3]
Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, References to Depression, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23187076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoonglights/pseuds/kyoonglights
Summary: track 02. sorry not sorry (하고 싶던 말)it’s tiring, she thinks. this is tiring. (in which his warmth seeps away over time, and joohyun’s left to be in love on her own.)
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene & Kim Junmyeon | Suho, Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kim Junmyeon | Suho
Series: 사월, 그리고 꽃 (april, and a flower) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1462330
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	words i wanted to tell you

**Author's Note:**

> (uh sorry again!)
> 
> ps. link to the lyrics translations is in the endnote

\+ 2 +

It’s been a week.

A week since they last met, a week since they last spoke. It’s been a week, and she’s been here for an hour, maybe two. Her iced coffee is a watered down mess, disgusting to ingest, the tang of coffee no longer as strong, only a fading taste of coffee, of water, almost flavourless except for the hint of bitterness. It’s like their relationship, she supposes. Watered down, fading, losing its strength. But like bitter, dark coffee, it’s a relationship built and started on hurt, on dark times, on bitter times—so she supposes this is what it would have come to anyways, however hard she fell, however hard she tried to keep everything up.

The waiter has hovered past her table countless number of times, she can feel his throwing his stares at her. She would’ve re-order something, to placate his irritation at her, who’s hogging a table for two for almost two hours, only buying an iced coffee, seemingly doing nothing, not even trying to contact the person she’s waiting for. But Joohyun persists. She’s been persisting for so long anyways, what’s an hour or two, or three?

When he finally appears, some people have left already, her glass of watered—iced coffee is empty, the waiter has asked her once if there’s anything else she needs.

Junmyeon looks tired, but he smiles when he sits. She waits for his apology, but it doesn’t come.

“Let’s go,” he says instead, and she doesn’t want to—she wants to cry, she wants to yell at him, wants to throw a tantrum and pour her anger, her pent-up frustrations, want to tell him how long she’s been waiting—the waiter’s in his casual clothes, now, already preparing to go home, and he’s looking at her with a look that’s no longer laced with irritation, only pity. But Joohyun nods, and gathers her bag, her phone to stand up and follows him out to his car.

She doesn’t ask him where they’re going, doesn’t start a conversation. Junmyeon takes her hand as he drives, and kisses it, holds it in his warm one, his thumb caressing the back of her hand. Joohyun closes her eyes as she doesn’t resist the gesture. There’s no anger left in her, no spite, only hurt. The drive is quiet save for the faint melody on his aux.

He drives them to his home, and the gesture is crass to her, almost hurting her dignity, but she follows him anyways, watches from behind him as he punch in the numbers for his door lock that she knows by heart, that she knows, if she’s the one in front, her fingers will move automatically, muscle memory. She follows him inside, to his living room, a warm, cozy place that’s a little cluttered because that’s how he is. His coffee table is full with paperwork, books, and an empty cup rimmed black with residue of coffee.

When Junmyeon finally talks, he talks as if there hasn’t been a week between them. As if he didn’t say what he said, as if he didn’t finally ask her to see him a week later, to wait for him in that cafe, only to make her wait three hours, only to come without an apology.

“I miss you,” he says, hand reaching out to hold hers again, and she lets him. _I don’t_ , she thinks, but even the thought is a lie. She misses him too, painfully so.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, words she wants to hear the most, yet words she’s tired of hearing. She longs for the time when it’s his love words she wants to hear the most, not his apology, over and over. He wraps her in his arms, and it’s hard to not sink into him, to wrap hers around him, too, to bury her face in the nape of his neck. It feels safe, feels like home, but she knows she has to leave this embrace she’s spent so many years convincing herself is her home, all for her own sake. “I’m sorry for everything.”

He always is. It’s always for everything, rarely a specific sort of apology. She knows it’s a genuine apology nonetheless, but sometimes it feels like he’s simplifying everything, yet she can’t not accept them.

“I know.”

But she’s tired—no, she’s exhausted, she can’t keep this up. She doesn’t want to forgive him this time, doesn’t want to fall back into routine with him this time. This time she wants to be the last, she wants to stop. The words are already itching in her throat, a lump she can’t swallow, but one she can’t throw out either. She wants this to be the last time she lets him come back, she really does. _Let’s break up_.

Instead she spends the night in his warm embrace, listening to the soft, smooth baritone of his voice as they lay in his bed.

\+ 0 +

She remembers, still, meeting him for the first time, on their first year of college. It’s vague, but it’s there in her memory, the handsome wide smile, carefree and pure, a smile full of hope and new beginnings. He smiled at her, a suave grin, friendliness blurring with naive confidence and bravado, as he walked up to her and said hello. She remembers only nodding politely, because her mother had always warned her about men, about being careful with them, and she had learned the hard way that she should have listened to her. Her mother always told her that it’s her beauty that had them. That it’s a dangerous thing. She knew—she learned it the hard way, how her beauty was never a leverage, it was a liability. And smiling, full-of-himself, freshman Kim Junmyeon had looked the part that she should be wary of, the kind that would feast on said liability.

She remembers leaving without so much as telling him her name, after nodding. She remembers the way his bravado and confidence cracked as his friends laughed, the little swell of pride after she rejected even his introduction, that she knew bordered on haughtiness, _served you right_.

Joohyun knows she’d judged him from the beginning, and that’s where she made her mistake. Had she not, perhaps, she would have been less fixated on him, she wouldn’t stand here now and be the one hurting, maybe.

But their path always crossed, they always collided, though only by the perimeter—their circles always overlapping by a breadth that’s small, but never enough to merge into one. Joohyun remembers him, still, everything that changed within him in her eyes, as their years passed as acquaintances. Kim Junmyeon, first year, head of internal departments of the student body. Kim Junmyeon, second year, professor’s assistant in macroeconomics. Kim Junmyeon, third year, head of the fraternity. Her first mistake had been rejecting him, because it had made her fixated on him. She watched him change, as she did too, and though barely realising it, she found herself slowly falling for the changes.

It’s a stupid thing—and it’s on her, really. She didn’t realise it one bit, they were only acquaintances, remember. He was a friend of her friend. She was a friend of his friend; they weren’t friends, though, she didn’t think, because they barely exchange long-enough conversations. He was popular, charming, and handsome Kim Junmyeon, head of several whatever somewhat useless student body organisation she didn’t care about, and she was popular, beautiful, and intimidating Bae Joohyun, smart with her straight-As and no-nonsense attitude. They always shared at least two, more often three classes each semester, with him in Applied Economics and her in Management. They’ve been in group projects together. They’ve been out drinking together, with ten-or-so other people. But no, she didn’t think they were friends.

He never made a move on her, ever, only joked once or twice how she refused to tell him even her name, as she smiled back and made a friendly jab about how she thought he had looked like a douchebag back then.He took it good-naturedly, and they laughed, because though they weren’t friends, not exactly, Junmyeon knew at that point that Joohyun wasn’t as cold as she looked, and Joohyun knew that Junmyeon was one of the most gentlemanly, trustworthy person around. The exchange was short and anecdotal, because it was second year, and around Joohyun’s shoulder had been the lean, warm arm of Kim Minseok, because she was tagging along with his friends, including Junmyeon. It was second year, and Junmyeon was the all-smiles, charming, trustworthy head of the student body, who was known to be an all-around good guy, and though he had matured from the over-suave, full-of-bravado freshman, he was still the same friendly Junmyeon.

Then came third year, and things changed. Things happened, things that shouldn’t, things that were unforeseen, things that broke people, including him—especially him. She remembers the day, still. It was from Minseok she found out—they had broken up months prior, with little to no bad blood, with no regrets. It’d been constant power struggle between them, and the way Minseok was always put together, was whole, the way he had always had his footing steady was something akin to a bore, like there was nothing she could fix. Nothing was broken. She had always had a hero complex, had always want to perfect things, to fix things. Minseok was never broken—and he also never registered that she was, in a way she didn’t even know either.

She watched him break. It was a slow process, a winding road, a gradual descent that was part heartbreaking and part fascinating to see. He was Kim Junmyeon, third year, head of the frat—and he lost one of his best friends, his junior, perhaps his favourite one.

“Sehun had an accident,” Minseok said to her in a call, his voice calm beyond measure, and she hadn’t known what to say.

“Oh Sehun?” She asked. She didn’t know the guy well—he was a second year, but she knew he was one of them, one of the boys. She met him once, tall, handsome, a little cold-looking yet there was an air of innocence and genuineness about him, one she had seen in Yerim— _Yerim_ , she thought. Yerim confessed to her she had a small crush on him once.

“Yeah,” Minseok affirmed. He still sounded composed. Too composed. “A car ran a red light into him. He’s critical.”

Yerim cried in her arms on the funeral a week later. She hadn’t cried the whole week, only looking pale, tired, scared. Joohyun stood with her and Seulgi and Sooyoung. Yerim and Sooyoung were the ones in Sehun’s year, yet there were so many people from her year, even freshmen too. Oh Sehun was a loved person, it looked like. He seemed that way. Seungwan was apart from them near the front where Sehun’s closest friends were, her small arms reaching up to wrap around Park Chanyeol’s shaking shoulders; trowing a worried look every now and then to Yerim.

Junmyeon stood with the Oh family, a white band circling his right arm over his black suit. She remembers his face, weary and lifeless, his hair was falling to his face messily, covering his eyes. He didn’t cry, at least she didn’t see him cry. Eight young men that she knew, several better, several only in passing, including Chanyeol, including Minseok, including him, all stood in their black suits, broken, frail, looking more like young boys than young adults. Junmyeon didn’t cry. He hugged several of his friends, who cried into his shoulder, despite a number of them being much taller than he was, they leaned on him, cried on him, depended on his support. He stood straight and unyielding as they did so.

She found herself looking at Junmyeon more and more, then—in a morbid sort of fascination, she supposed. She watched his smiles slowly went away, watched his eyes dimmed, watched his activities slowed down. He was Kim Junmyeon, third year, head of the frat, the backbone of his friends, who all started to disappear, started to slow down as was him. He was Kim Junmyeon, he lost a friend, perhaps his most loved one, Minseok once said, handsome, kind Kim Junmyeon, who was losing his smile. She wanted to fix him. She wanted to stitch him back into one.

It was a morning class. He often skipped these—Joohyun often looked for him, at the middle, or at the back, usually sitting with Minseok. A lot of the time, Minseok sat alone. She on the other hand, had been one of the very few, under ten people who always arrived almost half an hour before classes start, because she wanted to sit at the front. Most days Seungwan would join her, but some other days, when she was too tired because of her double degree, she’d drag her to the middle, where she could pay less attention more indiscreetly.

But he showed up that day. Early, too; early enough that it was only her, and three other people. He smiled at her—empty, unfocused, bleary. Junmyeon was hangover, or even drunk, she realised, as she watched him walk up the elevated seats to the back, too careful with his steps, too stiff, like how you would do if a police conduct a drunk test on you. Joohyun had watched him until he picked a seat, and leaned forward to put his head on the table. It took her a long time, a very, very long time, until people started filling the seats, that she finally decided to haul her things and move to the empty seat next to him.

“Minseok’s not coming today I think… do you need anything for Minseok? Or?” He asked, confused, as he lifted his head to look at her, puzzled by how she settled her things on the table next to his head; the seat where Minseok would have sat was still occupied by Junmyeon’s backpack, and he didn’t move it for her.

“No,” she said, pointing at the bag, “can I sit here today? I’m not feeling like sitting at the front.”

It was the start; the beginning.

_+_ 3 _+_

The last straw comes like a storm, sweeping even her by surprise—for she doesn’t know she has this much pain, this much hurt in her. They haven’t fought in a while, a long while. Perhaps two months. It’s a record, at this point. She figures it’s because it’s her mother’s birthday coming; she continuously berates herself now, that she knows it isn’t. She’s foolish—she’s always been.

He promised to pick her up. He promised he’ll come. He promised to spend the night, not the whole, perhaps, but at least a dinner at her family’s house. He promised to be nice to her mother. He promised he’ll remember.

Instead he disappears, off-grid, and she can’t call, can’t reach him. To think of it, it’s hard to really, truly reach him, these days. He stood her up as she waits for him foolishly at her workplace, trying to keep up the lie she told herself so much, that he’ll come, he will, she can trust him. All this time, all these years, she’s always been the one who comes to him, never otherwise. She gives up after an hour, hailing a cab in shame as a coworker asks why hasn’t she gone home yet, when she’s told them it’s her mother’s birthday, and that her fiancé’s coming to pick her up?

Her mother’s cooked a lot, her father’s waiting expectantly, her younger brother raises his eyebrow to her—where’s Junmyeon, they all ask.

“There’s a sudden meeting,” she lies through her teeth, “he says he’s really, really sorry but he can’t skip this one.”

There’s a glint behind their eyes—the same ones, a pity, a disappointment, a knowing understanding. But she ignores it, through gritted teeth and fake smiles she gives her mother her gift. A long time ago, some one-year, or even six months, she knows what conversations will arise—marriage, _when_ , _what are you waiting for_ , _you’ve been engaged for such a long time_. But now there’s no questions, only an overhang of worry and masked disappointment that tears her pride apart. She’s a very prideful woman, Joohyun. Or she used to be.

_She’s a prideful woman_ , she thinks bitterly as she punches the numbers to his door, as she steps in unannounced; this isn’t a behaviour she’d be proud of, but she’s at her wits’ end.

She doesn’t know what comes first: the anger, the pain, the shame, the disappointment. It’s started already from the entrance, though, because she steps in, and she knows, from the way his shoes aren’t aligned, the way they’re scattered, he probably came home drunk out of his mind, barely half-conscious, hammered. He’d stumble on the slightly raised floor, hopefully on his face, she spitefully thinks, and he’d stand up slowly to stagger his way to his bed, or sometimes, his sofa. It’s the latter this time. He’s off his blazer, but still fully clothed to his socks, knocked out on the sofa face-down on his belly. When she leans down, he reeks of alcohol.

“Kim Junmyeon,” she says, in a voice only one below a yell, “ _Kim Junmyeon_ , wake up.”

She wants to cry, when he does, blearily raising himself up to clearly see her. He’s disoriented, hungover, a mess. He’s in a state she hates the most the second. Joohyun closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Why—how did you get here?” Was his question. It’s abhorrently stupid, and Joohyun’s at the verge of breaking down—but she doesn’t want to, she really doesn’t.

“I know your passcode. I—that’s not important, Junmyeon, how could you? What have you been doing?My family was waiting, I was waiting—”

“It’s yesterday?”

“ _It_ , is my _mother’s_ birthday, Junmyeon—no, don’t you dare tell me you forget, you _intentionally_ forget.”

She knows it’s true, she just does. He tends to run away like that, by intentionally forgetting things, by simply disappearing, simply going away. And it’s hard to pull him back to her, once he does, but she too, is tired of having to anchor him back to her. She’s tired of him floating aimlessly like this.

Junmyeon buries his face on his hands, and she knows it’s not because he’s sorry, neither it is a show to fool her into thinking he is—he knows she’s known him far too deep to be fooled. It’s a resignation, a tiredness that she knows never goes away from him. But she, too, is tired.

_I’m sorry_ , she guesses. “I’m sorry,” he says, not looking at her. _For everything._ “For everything. I really am, Joohyun. I just—I can’t, I’m not feeling good enough to see your family, you know—”

“You could’ve just dropped by, a while,” she says weakly. “Or you could’ve told me you couldn’t come. You could—“

“If I told you, you’d drag me still,” he answers tiredly. They cut each other a lot, these days, in more ways than one. There’s no room for understanding, no room for gentle compassion, almost. They knew each other too well—and it left nothing else but bitter assumptions between. “You’d still force me to go, even though you know how I’d felt.”

But it’s been years, she thinks. _We’ve been together years, I’ve built you up for years_. Did she, really? “You could’ve lied,” she says at last, and her voice is small, at the verge of cracking. It’s a shameful thing to say, but it’s what she has left.

Junmyeon blinks up at her, disbelieving. He looks so haggard, messy, an empty shell. He doesn’t look the respectable finance analyst that he is during the day, doesn’t look the part. She realises it’s only to her he ever looks like this, only in front of her does he ever strip to the worst, the most emotionally bare of himself. The younger Joohyun would have been somewhat flattered to be shown this vulnerability, somewhat determined to build him up from the pieces he gives her, but it’s been years, and Joohyun’s been doing nothing but building a castle of sand in a high tide.

“You’d rather I lie to you,” he says, slowly, and Joohyun knows that this is it, they’re treading on a line that once breaks, would be irreparable. “Even though you know what it’s like, what’s wrong with me?”

“I’ve—I don’t know—what am I supposed to do?” She asks brokenly. “I’ve tried to do everything, anything. I’ve tried to be there for you and you push me away. I tried to take you out, do things that will make you feel better, but you don’t want to. I tried being angry, I tried letting our relationship breathe, I—“

“You’re not my therapist, Joohyun. Look, I told you I’m sorry—”

“I’m your girlfriend, your fiancé,” she says, and at that moment she bursts into tears, the hot, angry sting in her eyes finally spilling down to her face. “I love you, I want to help you, I want to fix you, I don’t want to be broken too—“

“I’ve never asked you to,” he says, and the quiet words feel like a tidal wave, crushing, dragging down the castle to crumbling sands. He’s right. All these years of being his back, of building him up, of being the mast he can lean on, all these years loving him, loving each moment she can see him smile, he never asked for even one of them. It’s her that’s hell-bent on doing that on her own. She was so focused on trying to fix him that she used pieces of herself to patch him up; now he’s a complete empty shell and she’s a broken, incomplete mess. It’s a losing battle, it has always been. Joohyun tries to take her ring out from her finger—a beautiful, dainty little thing, a rose-golden band with a small red stone; it has sat there on the fourth finger of her right hand for two whole years, with no signs of getting replaced soon. It’s a struggle, doing it while crying—everything is a struggle when one cries, and that’s why she rarely does. Junmyeon’s standing up, now, trying to hold her hands still, and it’s a scene as dramatic as any cheap Sunday drama, ones she’d laugh at, but it’s real, it’s happening to her, and it’s nowhere near laughable.

She leaves his apartment, his weak calls for her to not go, his weak apology, and him. For the last time, she thinks. _For the last time_ , she promises herself.

\+ 1 +

She always had a bit of a hero complex—she couldn’t deny this, in fact, she prided herself a little on it; in being the pillar for people to lean on, for her friends, for her family. And had it not been because of this, she wouldn’t find him. She wouldn’t have gravitated towards him. It might very well be an illness of her own, but she indulged in herself way too much to have realised.

To see him, from a steady, sturdy person that was Kim Junmyeon, first year, second year, third year of university, slowly crumble from within was hard. But there was something in her that wants to stop him crumbling, something that moved her to wrap herself like a safety net around him, to stop pieces of him from slipping away. She had wanted to help, simply help, simply be a friend for someone who have lost a loved one, she was simply trying to empathise. That was what she told herself. Truth was, it was a move that was as unconscious as a magnet pull.

To put it simply, she fell in love.

It started out subtly, so subtle was it that she didn’t realise, nor did he, nor did anyone—her friends, his friends, Minseok, even. They weaved into each other lives so seamlessly that when she realised this, this wasn’t her trying to be kind, this wasn’t just kindness, this wasn’t just compassion, it was a little too late.

“He’s not the same,” Minseok had said to her one day; he’d asked her to go out, only the two of them, as friends, and between the casual sips of coffee and friendly banter he had turned somber. “I know, Joohyun. I know the way you’re looking at him. I know it, and I see the way he’s starting to depend on you.”

“And it’s fine,” he continued, “I’m fine and we’re fine, we’re friends, right? But because we’re friends, and Junmyeon is my friend, I have to tell you, I have to do this—he’s not the same. He needs a lot. He’ll be a lot to handle. I’m saying this because I love him as my friend, and I’m still very fond of you.”

“I—“ Joohyun had stopped, and she could see that Minseok knew, he chose the wrong words. _He’ll be a lot to handle_. Joohyun would challenge that—Minseok, out of anyone, perhaps, would know that best. “I’m just trying to be there.”

“Very hard, evidently,” he smiled. There was a bitterness in it, though little. “I don’t want either of you hurt, but maybe especially him.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have taken Minseok’s words as a challenge—maybe she should’ve took it as what he intended it to be: a warning. But she was waist-deep anyways, she thought. She was already in love, with Junmyeon, with both his persistence to stay up and his inclination to go downhill. So when he told her unsurely that he might be in love with her—to her, perhaps it’s a reward of sorts. It’s an indulgent thought, but she took it that way. It’s been tough, and maybe it would be even tougher—but she loved him, and she knew it’ll pay off. Even as he told her to not expect too much of him, as he told her that he might not be able to do for her, things that she’d done, and would do, for him, she was fine. She thought she was.

It only went harder, from there—the start of nightmares, of shutting doors, of social anxiety, of avoidant behaviour. She’d drag him to therapy sessions when he didn’t want to go, and accompanied him when he felt he needed to go. She knew his diagnosis, his symptoms, his medications—she woke up with him in the middle of nights, held his clammy hands, let him breathe to her neck until the laboured breathing went calm. She graduated first, yet when she was adjusting with work life still helped him to function to his best, to finish his assignments, to finish his thesis. She knew her friends, and Minseok, all frowned upon her being hell-bent of taking care of him, but she didn’t care. She loved him, and she refused to give up, refused to give him up.

So things got better after it went worse—his graduation, his getting a job, his family and hers both accepting them with wide arms. Joohyun was, perhaps, a little bit blinded in love, but she had always been that way with anything she was doing—she had always been a hardworker, she was always persistent to the point of being hard-headed. Rewards she took were in the forms of Junmyeon’s smiles, of Junmyeon’s laughter, of Junmyeon giving her back the love she’d give. Of Junmyeon getting better. She loved him, and she thought she was close to making it. It had been an uphill road, then, and when he, out of the blue, proposed to her, she believed it would work. Everything had worked out, so far, though hard, so it wouldn’t fail now, would it?

Maybe things changed, along the way, things changing subtly enough that they didn’t realise, at first, just like their beginning. Maybe there were expectations forming, demands growing, maybe they took it too far when he hadn’t healed yet—not fully, perhaps. Maybe it had been a slippery slope all along, one that her foresight failed see, because she was wearing rose-coloured glasses. Maybe they’ve reached the top of their relationship and there were nowhere else to go but down.

Maybe, in her course of stitching him back up, in her persistence in building him back whole, she’d been unconsciously tearing pieces of herself out.

  * 4 +



Joohyun moves out of her place, in a whirlwind-sort of decision fuelled by both spite and desperation. Though they’ve been engaged for nearly two years they’ve always agreed of having separate places before marriage—a decision she is now grateful of. If she thinks about it, them getting engaged was too rushed anyways—they’d done it without properly thinking, or, well, _she’d_ accepted without properly thinking, when she was supposed to be the ground in their relationship. It’s hurtful to think, but nowadays she thinks she shouldn’t have accepted in the first place. There’s a spiteful side of her that wonders if he’d asked her to marry him— _one day, he’d said_ —only to anchor her longer to him, to weigh her down, to prevent her from going.

But though they’ve been living separately, still there’s too much of him she can see in her place—the way she can see shadows of him sitting in her couch, the way she remembers him leaning on the counter behind her when she cooked for them, the way she can almost feel the weight of him on her bed. It’s too much, and it’s unbearable, and she wants none of it. None.

Her new apartment is bright, white and plain—as plain and barren as her naked finger. Her move had been light, too light, perhaps, in her frenzy of donating and simply throwing out anything and everything that reminded her of him. She wiped her phone clean of him—pictures of his smiles, her smiles, their smiles. She brought all their printed photos discreetly to her office to shred them to pieces. She feels crazy, but she wants to see nothing of them, wants to remember nothing.

She wants nothing to do with him anymore. None.

Junmyeon had called, more than a few times. Maybe closer to a few dozen. Called, texted, apologised, left voicemails. She blocked him. Joohyun’s never known she had had this, this much mounting pain and anger and disdain towards him, never known this is the person she’d turn into.

Or maybe, it’s because she’s afraid that she’ll come back to him.

But he still knows her workplace, he still knows everything about her like the back of his hand—like the way she knew him. She’s not surprised when he shows up in front of her office, but she’s not prepared to see him again—not prepared to see him ever, again. It’s borderline violent, the way her feelings react to the simple sight of him—the way his eyes are bloodshot and tired, the way his clothes hang loose. But he offers her a smile, he looks nowhere near disheveled with his neatly pressed dress shirt, he looks like he’s trying.

“You moved,” he says. His voice is cracking. “I didn’t want to go here because I don’t want to bother you at work, but—“

“But yet here we are,” she says, keeping her voice curt and biting. Junmyeon smiles defeatedly.

“I know. I still want to see you,” he says, “I still—“

“It’s over, Junmyeon,” she tells him, “let’s not see each other ever again.”

For a split second she fears he’s going to crumble right then and there, kneeling, begging, causing a scene, and Joohyun almost panics. But instead, Junmyeon takes a deep breath and looks at her in the eyes. His hands are inside his pockets. She wonders whether he has them balled up in fists, or were they nervously fidgeting. “I’ll get better,” he says to her, his tone almost, almost confident, but she can here the undertones of desperation, the way he’s begging, “I’ll try to get better, and I’ll clean up my mess and get my shit together. I won’t bother you in the meantime but—give me time, give me time, and a chance, Joohyun.”

She can almost physically feel her heart wavering, swaying, her defence built out of anger and hurt and disappointment almost crumbling down just like that, but her legs still stand like steel, not trembling, and Joohyun shakes her head. “No. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

She can see him break behind his eyes. “Even if one day I get better?”

She can’t say yes. She hopes he doesn’t see her breaking, too. “Let’s part ways and be better each on our own.”

Silence passes between them, for what seems like an eternity. She knows there might be people watching, there might be her colleagues witnessing, but she can’t bring herself to care. Joohyun doesn’t know what makes her stand there, still, unmoving, instead of leaving him—it’s as if she’s trying to take up as much as his presence as possible, now, here, to make up for the way she had been so rash in making her world as devoid of Junmyeon as possible. Or maybe because as she stands here, in front of him, for what she knows would be the last time, her disdain of him flecks away, revealing her hate towards her own self.

She’s so selfish, she thinks snidely, all these years of pitying herself and feeling as if he’s being selfish but it turns out it’s her who’s being selfish all along—she broke her back trying to piece him together against the world, trying to built him up—not to what he once was, but to what she wanted him to be. She’s so selfish, she thinks, and she wants him to know that, to realise that he doesn’t need her. That _she_ needed him.

“Okay,” he says slowly, finally, after taking a deep breath, “if—if that’s what you want.”

She’s so selfish, she thinks sadly, because she half-hoped he’d plead once again for her to stay. “It is,” she says, taking a shaky breath, “I’m going home.”

He softly grabs her arm as she walks past him, and it feels like electric shocks to her. “Joohyun,” he says, looking into her eyes with his clear, tired eyes, “I’m sorry,” he lets her arm go, “for everything. I mean it.”

It’s hard to stare back at those very eyes without her own stinging. “Bye, Junmyeon,” she says, only a little above a whisper, before she walks away from him, before everything falls. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry for everything too._

+

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is going to be long, because I need to clarify.
> 
> first, I want to remind that fan fictions are fictions, and it is in no way representative of people whose names & likeness are borrowed in it. the details and characterisations are purely fictional and does not reflect said people. please do not take my fictions or any other fictions at face value, as it might be harmful to both the real people whose names are used and to the reader alike. fanworks, this included are never meant to degrade, misrepresent, or cause harm—it’s simply a form of creative outlets by fans.
> 
> that being said (might make that a permanent disclaimer..) i’ve last posted sooo many months ago, and i actually still write a lot of things in my spare time, but i debated posting them, because with flower, it kind of spiraled out of control, in terms of length. uuh. idk what happened either. 
> 
> and then mostly I postponed posting anything because when i finished and was about to post this, i look back and i feel it’s a very sensitive topic…. I finished this just right around the time news of the heartbreaking passing of a number of people in k-entertainment industry broke out. as a result I hesitated to post and this has been sitting in my drafts for sooo, so many months after it’s finished. so I wrote this way before the said sad news, and while love words, the second part to this, is written after (still in the works), I know how this work might seem idk insensitive and it is a delicate topic, but the ideas and overall outline have been in the works way before a lot of things happened.
> 
> note that in no way, shape or form am I wishing ill-wills to any of the people whose names and likeness I used for this piece of fiction, and that this is a pure fiction not inspired whatsoever by recent events. it was somewhat inspired by real-life events in my own life, very loosely so, but definitely not by the events concerning and surrounding idols who have passed away, and the people around them, and the idols who happen to be their colleagues, whose characterisations I used in this fiction. 
> 
> i offer sincere condolences and let us pray for the ones that have passed so they can rest in peace and happiness, and for the ones who are left to be able to find peace.
> 
> to be explicit & expand on the themes of the story—it’s about how mental illness may affect relationships. of course this isn’t the only way it would go, if someone with depression and/or anxiety and/or other mental illness enter a relationship. however, it is undeniably tough to deal with—whether it is for the person with mental illness, or their partner. both are incredibly strong people. let us all always be mindful and understanding towards people with their own mental struggles, let us be supportive and always kind, let us always be aware of the mental well-being of our loved ones.
> 
> hope we can all be happy always, spread love. sorry for the super long note and thank you if you took the time to read it!
> 
> sorry not sorry lyrics translations:  
> https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-chen-exo-sorry-not-sorry-english-translation-lyrics


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